This Love
by Jennie Exell
Summary: BA Sometimes love isn’t enough. Buffy Survivor week three, three word challenge


It's been like this for years. This is the only time I have to pretend she's mine. As I lie awake, spooned around her, trailing my fingertips over sex warmed, satin skin. She's still a goddess, still so beautiful, even at 35. She's older than me now, at least in appearance and possibly in cynicism.

It started three years ago, no that's wrong it started before that, with an unintelligible speech about cookie dough and being passed over for a peroxide blonde. Nine years later, freshly human and bursting with hope and dreams, I showed up on her doorstep. She didn't welcome me with open arms, and I wasn't exactly hoping she would. I had my hopes and dreams, but I had my issues too, the immortal being the first in a long line. So we talked, and cleared the air, or so I thought. We'd been living together for nearly four months, when she left me the first time.

_I was so high I did not recognize  
The fire burning in her eyes  
The chaos that controlled my mind  
Whispered goodbye and she got on a plane  
Never to return again  
But always in my heart_

Giles called, said she was needed in England, so she went. She told me she would be back in a month, but it would be better if I didn't go. Sometimes I think I never recovered from my puppet phase, because Muppet seems an apt description of me, then and now. Six weeks past and I hadn't even got a phone call, and she hadn't left me a contact number. So I spent my time pacing by the phone, in our tiny flat in Rome, waiting for a call, hoping it would be her calling and not someone else calling saying she was dead. I never got a call in the end; I got a letter. I still have it; I like to look at when I'm in a particularly masochistic mood. The long and the short of it, she wasn't as baked as she thought. I could accept that, I've lived a long time; patience is one of my better skills. The ability to lie to myself is obviously one of them too, because I followed her.

_This love has taken it's toll on me  
She said goodbye too many times before  
And her heart is breaking in front of me  
I have no choice cause I won't say goodbye anymore_

I get up from the bed, and cross to the window. The stars are hardly visible in London any more, the light pollution is worse here than in LA, the air's cleaner though, and that's a relief.

She wasn't pleased to see me when I found her in London; in fact she had a very loud rant in the middle of the street, telling me exactly what she thought of me for following her. To say I was confused was an understatement, but with hindsight I shouldn't have been, she wasn't the Buffy I remembered, even during the months we lived together.

I'm a wealthy man, so finding an apartment in London, setting myself up for a comfortable life, wasn't hard. But it wasn't the same without her. The more I pushed, the further away she seemed to be, so I backed off, and started sorting my life out. I started going to college, studying for a degree in history, not sure what I had planned to do with it, but it was something to do. I took lovers, nothing serious, but the occasional first or second year student, confident in their own youth and beauty, looking for more than what the average college boy could offer. I should feel bad about it, but I don't. I wasn't looking for a relationship, how could I, when my heart belonged to someone already? I made no empty promises and they never expected any. It was loveless, emotionless, a bit like I was beginning to feel.

Then one day she showed up on my doorstep, distraught and needing comfort. An operation gone wrong, numerous fatalities and many more injured, the number of active slayers depleted, her first major defeat in a decade. I made her feel good about herself that night.

_I tried my best to feed her appetite  
Keep her coming every night  
So hard to keep her satisfied  
Kept playing love like it was just a game  
Pretending to feel the same  
Then turn around and leave again_

_This love has taken it's toll on me  
She said goodbye too many times before  
And her heart is breaking in front of me  
I have no choice cause I won't say goodbye anymore_

But she was gone when I woke. That's how it started, I didn't have her number, and the council turned me away if I tried to catch her at work. But every now and then she would turn up on my doorstep and I made her feel better about herself for a few hours, before she leaves, just as the sun peaks over the horizon. I told her I loved her just once; she got up, dressed and left with out a word. I didn't see her for a whole two weeks. I haven't made that mistake again.

_I'll fix these broken things  
Repair your broken wings  
And make sure everything's alright  
My pressure on her hips  
Sinking my fingertips  
Into every inch of you  
Cause I know that's what you want me to do_

I don't know what happened to her, she won't tell me and I've given up asking. But she's hollow, and I'm getting there too, with every meeting like this. We don't make love; we have sex, harsh, painful, exciting, emotionless sex. She leaves able to face the new day, and I get up and have a drink. I'm 29 years old, and I need at least two glasses of whiskey to face each day. Each time she leaves, I hope she won't be back, but I know she will, maybe the next time, I won't show her in, hand her a glass and then…

Its raining now, the water pouring over the side of the broken guttering, making a waterfall down the window. I can remember making love to her while it rained outside, how we clung to each other, desperate, scared and madly in love. I turn to look at her, and for a moment, I'm back there, back in Sunnydale, and my heart leaps. All I want to do is hold her, comfort her and chase away the demons that have placed shadows in her eyes. But she won't let me, I keep thinking that next time, next time we'll talk and next time I'll get her back. Next times comes, and the pattern repeats; she arrives and I let her in, we have a drink and then we have sex, at some point we'll make it to the bed, and then we'll go at it again. When we're both exhausted she falls asleep, but I find the strength to stay awake and watch her. As the sun starts to rise, she stirs, and I pretend to sleep, I hear her get up, dress, then she comes back to the bed, I always think she's debating maybe giving me a kiss, but she never does, she whispers goodbye and she's gone and I'm alone to wait for her to come again.

_This love has taken it's toll on me  
She said goodbye too many times before  
And her heart is breaking in front of me  
I have no choice cause I won't say goodbye anymore_

No this ends; I can't take it any more. I would rather live with out her, than live with what's left.

THE END

_Challenge_

_Stars, Waterfall, Satin._

_Must include the lyrics to a song. - Lyrics from This Love By Maroon 5_


End file.
